Integration With ITunes Provides a Cut of Sales for EW

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When it comes to magazines on the iPad, interactive versions of regular print editions have gotten the spotlight so far.

The app comes integrated with iTunes, Amazon and Fandango so users can buy the recommended content.

But what about iPad owners who have priorities beyond a deep dive into the latest issue? The iPad is a digital device, after all, and digital is great for grazing. Digital is also great for buying things.

That's why Entertainment Weekly's new iPad app is particularly interesting among the magazine apps we've seen to date. It only reproduces one part of its print experience, the weekly Must List of recommended movies, music, TV, books and games, with options to sample content with previews, for example, or song snippets. And the app comes integrated with iTunes, Amazon and Fandango so users can buy the recommended content. Entertainment Weekly, which is part of Time Inc., gets a share of revenue generated through iTunes sales.

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The entry recommending "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" on DVD, for example, includes buttons letting users watch the trailer, buy the DVD from Amazon, buy the soundtrack from iTunes or read the EW review. The entry on Fox's sci-fi series "Fringe" touts the show above buttons letting users buy episodes on iTunes, watch EW's "Fringe" preview video or read an EW recap.

The experience isn't seamless; the app can't, for example, sell you a song from iTunes without pushing you out of the app and opening iTunes on your iPad. But at least iTunes opens directly to the song you're trying to buy. And Amazon and Fandango do open within the app itself.

The Must List app is currently free and sponsored by AT&T, but EW has not decided whether it will eventually charge for it. EW says it is also working on a full, robust iPad version of its print magazine.

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Nat Ives

Nat Ives is executive editor at Ad Age, which he joined in 2005 as a reporter on the publishing beat. He previously helped cover the media and ad industries as a news assistant at The New York Times and reported on commercial real estate for Institutional Investor newsletters. He graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2001.